Webinars

As a specialist in face-to-face communication, when I first heard of the concept of webinars, I was very skeptical and hesitant to seriously consider them as an alternative means to share my knowledge with others.

How wrong I was!

I spent almost 18 months attending and researching webinars, learning what makes them effective – and what gets in the way of having this technology really deliver the outcomes that are often promised in the promotional pieces we receive about them. I’ve attended some that I logged out of after only 10 minutes, and others I wish would go on for much longer than the advertised 90 minutes. During some I’ve read my emails – during others I’ve been glued to the screen and taken copious notes!

If I’m going to do something, I am committed to doing it well. So I’ve invested in attending webinars on how to run great webinars and learned from leaders in this field. And I’ve incorporated ‘best practices’ in webinar delivery so my clients can reap the benefit.

“Sandi, thank you for yesterday’s webinar in the Creating More Confidence in your Life series. I am really finding them very helpful.”

Kerry Cuskelly, Library Manager

“Sandi, I just wanted to say a great big ‘Thank you’ for being such an inspiration and having so much faith in me. I spoke at a Conference last week and didn’t die of nerves – so once again, thank you for your encouragement over the past couple of years. I am sure that I could not have done so well without you.”

Jacquelene Brotherton, Transport Manager, Oxford Cold Storage

"Hi Sandi - thank you for your experience and insight provided to me over the course of 2011. It has truly fostered personal growth."

I recently attended a three-day women’s festival that I attended for the first time in 2016. It’s never the same the second, third or umpteenth time around is it? First of all, there’s that ‘first time newness’ that we can only get once. “Wow! Look at that!” “Goodness, that’s amazing!” And so on … because we are seeing things through fresh, first-time eyes.

In our subsequent visits, while we look for that same magic, but logically know it will be different than our beloved ‘first-time’. We then start to notice what’s not there that we liked the previous year(s), and lament “But I really liked that!”

So this year, I decided to focus instead on what was new, different and intriguing. And that’s how I came across The Release Tree.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it. (I’ve seen this attributed to Dan Millman)

Courage is resistance to fear. (Thanks Mark Twain)

Courage is mastery of fear. (Mark Twain again)

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (Kelly Clarkson made this line famous in her pop song)

In other words, grit your teeth and move on regardless. Tough it out. Toughen up.

A lot of people who know me say I’m one of the most tenacious, determined, “courageous” people they know. And I’ve always kind of liked this. I’m proud that I ‘hang in there’, dig deep and find my way through challenges.

My father (bless you, dad) had a saying that went something like this: “The real measure of a person’s character is how they handle adversity.” And I liked this too – for most of my life.

Whenever I was going through a tough time, I’d remember my dad’s words and think ‘keep going, Sandi – you’re developing character. People will admire you for the fact that you’ve made it through all this crap.’ And so I did keep going (though I’m not sure this really earned me brownie points in the admiration-from-other-people stakes).